Early in May the concert given by the combined musical organizations was given. That was the next great interest for Betty and her musical friends. A close study of good music had been made under the direction of the leader, and the result was an entertainment of which Lyon High was not ashamed.

Betty, pretty and excited, in her light dress, gracefully manipulated a bow in the orchestra. Chet was also prominent, tooting away at the proper time. Lucia sang with the combined glee clubs. Ted Dorrance and his mother sat near enough for Ted to salute Betty with hand and head. The entire Lee family attended; and the countess, with Mr. Murchison and some other friends, sat in the middle of the balcony. The orchestra was one organization where favoritism was seldom shown. You played well or you didn’t and were ranked accordingly. You came to practice or were dropped. You behaved or you were sent to “D. T.,” the common expression for “detention” or staying after school in a sort of study hall.

But it was good fun and you met other boys and girls who liked music, some of them with fine gifts in the line. And dear me, how wide Betty’s acquaintance had grown to be in these three years at Lyon High! Hikes and picnics with the G. A. A. or the class or a few friends; a party here, a meeting there; the Dramatic Club, the Latin Club, the Girl Reserves and Y. W. affairs. Betty needed a private directory, she declared, not to forget “who was who and where she had met them.” Some were more interesting than others, and among those who were interesting she counted the “Pirate of Penzance,” Marcia Waite’s brother, from whom she occasionally heard through Marcia, or Lucia, who was in Marcia’s sorority. Once she had a very friendly letter from him and at Christmas time he had sent her a card. He always addressed her as “Titania” in remembrance of their first meeting on Hallowe’en. It was his face that she had seen in the mirror. Wouldn’t it be funny if, after all—but what nonsense!

Carolyn and Kathryn were taking a great interest in swimming in this junior year and now all three were working hard at the life-saving tests. Betty longed to have some riding lessons to ride “properly,” with Lucia, for from little things that Lucia said from time to time, she fancied this to be Lucia’s last year at Lyon High. But Betty could not do everything. Riding would be just as good another year, her mother said.

And now, one lovely week-end, Mrs. Murchison sent for Mrs. Lee. The poor bewildered old lady in the suite upstairs was slipping quietly over the border from life here to life eternal. Betty went over to stay with Lucia, who had told Betty before how they had put the dolls away when Grandmother Ferris had seemed to come to herself for a while, though weak, sleeping a great deal and finally falling asleep not to waken.

“This takes away one reason for Mother’s staying here,” said Lucia to Betty after the funeral, when Betty came after school to stay all night again. “This is what I wanted to talk over with you, Betty. I wrote everything to my father, Betty, and I wrote again to Italy where he is now. I haven’t had a word from him in reply to all I said, or about coming, just cards about where he was and how soon he would reach Italy and how he was having the palao opened in Milan. Now that may mean something. I left the letter where mother would find it. And Betty, when your mother was here, my mother broke down a little over grandmother’s going, and I heard her say, ‘Oh, I’m so lonely, Mrs. Lee!’ And your mother asked her right away if her ‘husband’ would not soon return from his African trip. Evidently you hadn’t told your mother a word.”

“Oh, no, Lucia! Of course not!”

“Mother said she hoped that he’d get back safely, and your mother said that the hardest thing in the world was for families to be separated. Probably she has heard some talk about Mother’s staying here so long, but anyhow she saw this sort of thing is all wrong, whether I get educated in America or not. I’d stay here another year alone if I could get mother to go back to my father!”

“Would you, Lucia? I wish you would stay. I hate to lose you for a friend.”

“You’re never going to lose me, Betty Lee! I need you. Don’t you think it would be nice to have a real old Italian palao to come to when you ‘go abroad,’ as they say here.”

“It isn’t possible,” grinned Betty. “That, Lucia, is a fairy story!”

This conversation took place at the scene of previous confidences, Lucia’s own room. And when the girls started to the drawing room a little later, they passed a room in which Betty heard the sound of a machine. “Peep in a moment, Betty,” Lucia suggested, stopping Betty as she would have gone more rapidly.

Betty looked in at the open door. There sat Giovanna at the machine, and there in a chair beside her sat a dark-haired girl, simply but neatly dressed, and weaving a needle in and out in the meshes of some beautiful lace. As the girls paused, the needle stopped and the girl turned her head in their direction, to smile at Lucia.

“You saw us in the mirror, didn’t you?” Lucia asked, stepping within the room. “Betty, see how wonderfully this lace is being mended. She is practically making lace where it is torn. This is my friend Betty Lee, Rose. Betty—” but the Countess Coletti was at the door and spoke.

“Girls, run right down, please. Uncle wants to see you, Lucia.”

With a smile at the “Rose,” who was about to be more fully introduced to her, she supposed, Betty followed Lucia downstairs, while the countess went into the sewing room. “I thought I’d surprise you, Betty, though I almost forgot it,” said Lucia.

“You certainly did! That is the face that we saw at the window when we went carolling?”

“Yes. It was just accidental we found the girl, though. Mother has some lace to be mended, as you saw; and when she inquired a little, one of her friends told her about discovering this girl that does such fine work.”

“What is her name?”

“Rose Seville, I believe.”

“Seville! That is a place in Spain, isn’t it? First class in geography stand up, as Mother says! And it’s awfully like Sevilla, too!”

Lucia looked puled, then saw her uncle, who came from the drawing room into the hall as the girls reached the foot of the stairs. He was ready to leave the house, they saw. Nodding to Betty, whom he had seen before since her arrival, he detained Lucia for some message; Betty did not hear what it was and would not have listened. She went on into the drawing room and walked to one of the windows that looked out upon the lawns, now lovely with flowers.

Betty was thinking about the girl upstairs. Rose, like the “Rosie” of Mrs. Woods account. Seville, like Sevilla, and that man had called them the Sevillas. At least he had not found them; and if this were Ramon’s sister, she must have found enough work to get along. She would ask Lucia if she might talk to this Rose Seville.

Betty had not long to wait and when Lucia came into the room to find her she told her that she had a “mystery to solve,” a statement that interested Lucia exceedingly. They sat down together on the soft cushions of a handsome davenport while Betty told Lucia “all about it.” With a bit of her mother’s energy and direct efficiency, Lucia jumped up and declared that they would find out at once. Two eager girls ran up the stairs to the sewing room, which the countess was just leaving.

“Wait a minute, Mother, please,” asked Lucia. “Betty wants to speak to Rose and I think you will be interested.”

Smilingly, and with her usual poise, the countess waited, Lucia slipping her hand into that of her mother and standing back a little, near the door, while Betty stepped closer to the girl that raised such surprised but beautiful eyes to her.

“Excuse me, Miss Seville,” said Betty, “but your name reminds me of some one that I do not know, but—that I may have some good news for.” Betty spoke rather stumblingly, in her effort not to startle the girl if she were the lost “Rosie.”

“I have been wanting to find a lady and her daughter named Sevilla ever since a Mrs. Woods told me about them.” Betty stopped, for the girl before her turned pale and started to rise hastily.

“But you know I said I have good news for them!” exclaimed Betty, certain now.

“Oh!” exclaimed the girl, dropping back. The countess drew a little nearer and spoke reassuringly. “Rose, this young girl is perfectly safe with any secret you may have, and so are we. Nothing can harm you here.”

“Oh!” exclaimed the girl, softly, again. “I—yes. I am the one they called Rosie Sevilla there.”

“And have you a brother called Ramon? Because we know a very nice boy that was known as Ramon Balinsky here; but he went away and we had a letter from him, and it’s very likely that he will come back to see us some time.”

Now the girl was all eager interest. The countess drew the lace from her hands and lap and sat down herself, in Giovanna’s vacant chair, to listen while Betty told all she knew and Rose acknowledged that they had been looking for Ramon. “Some time I can tell you all,” she said in her soft English with the foreign accent. “Ramon is a good boy. The jewels are our own. That man has been deceiving us first and then doing us all the harm he could. When we at last found out more about him, we tried to escape him and find Ramon. Then he must be looking for us, too. We went away from the rooms we had because I had seen that evil man upon the street here and I knew he would find us. Then a friend we have told us that he had gone and we came back because I could have work here and knew some good people like the countess here. The pretty Italian signorina here told me that she had seen me when the pretty carols were sung. I listened, but my mother, who is old and sick, wanted me to put down the window.”

Rose stopped, but looked troubled. “When did the man come to see your father? He has come back again!”

“It was some time ago,” answered Betty, “and Father thought that he would probably go to Detroit to look for Ramon.”

“He has money—our money, and he will kill Ramon, I think.”

“Perhaps he’s been just scaring you,” suggested Betty. “He did not look so terrible as that.”

“He is a serpent,” said Rose. “Some time I may tell you more, if you care about it.”

The countess, listening, had not much relished having Lucia called the “Italian signorina,” however flatteringly, as Lucia herself had noted by her mother’s expression. Oh, yes, Countess Coletti was making an American out of her daughter—perhaps, Lucia thought. But the countess had an idea.

“Rose,” she said, “how would you like to bring your mother here and help me for a while? You would be safe, I think, and especially if we arrange for another of your names to be used. I suppose you have a string of them, like most of the noble families in the old world.”

“Yes. That has been our mistake—but we wanted Ramon to be able to find us if he were still alive.”

“Poor child!” cried the countess. “There are those rooms on the third floor since Grandmother Ferris has gone. They are in a wing, by themselves. I will speak to my brother about it. The nurse and maid who took care of Madam Ferris both wanted to leave. There is much to be done, with her private possessions all to be looked over; and some way I can not bear to do it, or let careless people do it. I could use you in many ways, Rose and we would pay you well. Will you come?”

“Can you mean that?” Rose Sevilla was eagerly leaning forward, almost afraid to believe the countess. Rich people sometimes had kind impulses and then forgot!

“I mean it,” smiled Countess Coletti. “Finish the lace now. Come tomorrow and by that time I will have consulted our new housekeeper and considered the matter of furniture and just what rooms shall be cleared for you and your mother. There is every arrangement for cooking light meals there, since it was often necessary.”

“Mother is more sick with worry than anything,” said Rosie. “This news will make her happy—and to be safe! She is old and has been through so much that it will be like heaven here! I will do everything. No work is too hard for me.”

The countess smiled. “You shall do enough to earn the way of both of you, never fear, though I shall want to know some time what daughter of Spanish nobles is living on our third floor.”

Rose smiled at that. “You shall know all, perhaps, some day. I thank you for trusting me!”

At last the trail was laid to bring Ramon and his mother and sister together. Betty felt satisfied. Her neglect or carelessness earlier in the steps of identification had not been fatal to the final outcome. And it was Lucia and the carolling that were finally responsible, as she told Lucia.

“Yes, and who got me to join the Girl Reserves?” asked Lucia. “Now bring my father over here, Betty, and you will fix us all up!”

“That is beyond little me,” laughed Betty. “That is quite your job, Signorina Coletti!”